Let Us Go Then
by We No Longer Speak
Summary: Sequel to Without John and Since You've Been Gone, in which there is reunion.


John would later try and recall the moment he opened the door. He would like to say he knew Sherlock was there. He would like to say he understood right away.

But he didn't.

When John opened the door to his shabby little flat, carefully holding his gun out of sight, he stood there for more than a minute. He said nothing and gave no facial cues at all.

"John?" Sherlock prompted finally, unable to wait any longer.

John turned around and went back into his apartment, leaving the door open and Sherlock standing in the hall with the flickering light. Sherlock blinked for a moment, then immediately followed and closed the door.

"John?" He tried again.

John had crossed the room and was quite carefully and deliberately unloading his Browning. He then took the gun apart as if he were cleaning it and laid out each piece and the clip on a foldout TV tray. Then he picked up his cell phone and hit a number clearly on speed dial.

"Greg, I think you need to come and pick me up. I need to go to hospital."

Sherlock was later quite embarrassed that it took him that long to figure what was even happening.

"Because Sherlock just showed up at my door. He's still here in the room with me. I can see him quite clearly. I think I need a Thorazine drip."

Sherlock reached over and plucked the phone from John's hand, "Lestrade, cancel that. There's nothing wrong. I'll call you tomorrow."

There was a lot of muffled phone screaming.

"Yes, yes. Tomorrow!" Sherlock turned the phone off.

He turned back to John, who was now seated on the floor in the furthest corner of the room. As this was council housing that was less than three feet away.

John had curled himself up, hugging his knees, as was rocking slightly. His eyes looked distinctly disassociated and distant. The stare passed through Sherlock and went on to nothing.

"You are not hallucinating."

"You're dead."

"Well, no. I'm actually not."

"I saw it. I saw you jump."

"Arrangements were made so that it wasn't… permanent."

"Arrange-" John's voice broke and he stopped. His breathing became ragged. He turned his face away.

Sherlock noted that his own heart rate had increased significantly. This was ridiculous. There was no threat, no requirement for elevated heart rates. Or the increased breathing. Or the prickling of cold sweat along his hairline. There was no reason for him to be experiencing any of that.

Except that John was very upset and Sherlock's body seemed determined to follow his lead. It was so incredibly illogical.

John, for the most part, recalls this entire experience as a blur. Words were exchanged and he finally understood what was going on but couldn't process it. All he could do was suffer through one of the worst panic attacks he'd ever had.

His muscles shook and he tried to forcibly relax but this just made it more painful. He couldn't breathe properly.

Then Sherlock was kneeling on the floor right in front of him, "John, you need to slow your breathing. If you continue to hyperventilate you'll pass out."

John attempted all the training and the breathing exercises he'd been taught. They had served him during battle but utterly failed here on his living room floor.

Then Sherlock reached out very slowly and cautiously touched him on the knee. It was contact filled with hesitance and self-consciousness. It was how Sherlock touched him. Because it _was_ Sherlock.

And that was the moment John Watson really broke.

"I-can't-I-can't-I-can't-"

"John, please-" Sherlock wasn't sure what he was asking. Please don't cry? Please make your pain stop hurting me. Because it really, really hurt. It was a strange, crushing sensation in his chest. His vision tunnelled.

Should he remove his hand from John's knee? It trembled there like some fragile thing. John's knee was very warm. Sherlock often forgot how warm other people were.

He did not remove his hand.

After a few minutes, John began to gain control. Sherlock found himself unconsciously matching John's breathing, as if he could help somehow. Deep, deliberately slow diaphragmic breathing took up the next few minutes.

John scrubbed at his face and looked at Sherlock again. His expression changed to one Sherlock could not read. It was a sort of distressed wonder, "You're crying."

Sherlock blinked in surprised and brushed away the damp streaks on his face. He suddenly didn't know what to say. His great mind went utterly blank.

There was pounding on the door, "JOHN!"

Fortunately it occurred to D.I. Lestrade to try the door before kicking it in, which the volume and tone of his voice suggested, would be his next action.

Lestrade froze in the doorway, staring at Sherlock, jaw slack.

"You see him, too, then?" John asked.

Sherlock observed a moment here between John and Lestrade. He often noticed these moments, subtle exchanges filled with meaning and emotion that he could rarely fully understand. Some particular glance, a drift of facial expression, somehow this conveyed a lot of information to the ordinary person.

John's face was the only one he could consistently read in moments like these. John's face said overwhelmed-panic-relief. It was contradictory but Lestrade seemed to immediately understand. This was a cognitive weakness Sherlock preferred not to dwell on.

Lestrade collapsed onto a folding chair. There really weren't many pieces of furniture in the flat, Sherlock noted absently. This was not a home. There were no personal details at all. This was something distinctly odd, as John was mostly composed of homey, personal details.

Lestrade was rubbing his face, Sherlock still hadn't moved from his crouched position. He self-consciously removed his hand from John's knee.

"You. Absolute. Prick." Lestrade looked up and glared at Sherlock with impressive venom. He was still flushed from what was clearly a dead run.

Sherlock scanned him. He'd clearly dropped everything when John had called and come at a dangerous pace. He'd spilled something on the Arsenal t-shirt he was wearing at it was still damp. Beer and something cheap and mass produced judging from the hoppy smell. He wasn't wearing socks but he'd managed his trousers.

"Do you have any idea what you put the lot of us through? Him especially." Lestrade gestured at John, "Christ, I can't BELIEVE you."

"It was the only way." Sherlock pointed out, he was going to explain everything but Lestrade cut him off.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure it was. A genius like you couldn't come up with anything better than that?"

Sherlock froze, briefly without a response. Obviously the correct answer was, 'no', but it stung his pride to say so.

"If he says there wasn't a better way, we have to believe it, though, don't we?" John said, knowing it was true only as the words emerged, "I mean, can you come up with another?"

Sherlock turned to John, warmed by his defence only to be thrown again by his tired, defeated expression. This was not quite going the way he'd hoped it would.

John rested his head on the wall behind him but didn't take his eyes off of the other two men and the door. John always scanned the perimeter and kept an eye on any possible entry. He couldn't help it. It was a hard-won reflex.

The room was silent for a moment.

"Well, I guess you're alright, then? I mean, _considering_." Lestrade said, darkly. He got up from the chair like it took considerable effort.

John was nodding but his eyes had a disassociated quality to them, they stared blankly a thousand yards farther than the tiny flat could hold, "Thank you. For coming, Greg, I appreciate it."

Lestrade glared at Sherlock again as he stalked by and left, closing the door firmly behind him.

They were alone again. Sherlock scanned John but there was no change. His expression was exhausted and blank. The silence stretched out between them.


End file.
